North Sider Held On Rape Charge

June 18, 1985

A North Side man was arraigned on a rape charge in Cook County Criminal Court on Monday after a 22-year-old woman identified him as the man who climbed a fire escape, broke into her 11th-floor apartment and attacked her. Police Sgt. Edward Adorjan of the Belmont Area violent crimes unit said the suspect, Wardell Bailey, 32, lives in a seventh-floor apartment in the same building on West Belmont Avenue. Bailey, who told police he is a student at the Wilfred Academy of Hair and Beauty Culture, said he was drinking with his wife and her sister early Sunday when his wife left the apartment to walk her sister home. Adorjan said Bailey told police that after the women left, he went out the apartment window and climbed the fire escape to the top of the 12-story building.